I Really Wish This Elevator Story Was More Uplifting

Now, if you’ll turn in the Good Book to Proverbs 20:17:

“Stolen bread tastes sweet, but it turns to gravel in the mouth…”

“Guess what kids?!? Your Pops just won you a free five-week stay at the beach!!!”

Yep, that’s right, we’re still talking about that one time I outsmarted our insurance company and subsequently found myself and my family taking refuge from our home remodeling project at a beach house in Oak Island, NC.

But not just any beach house! It was the one and only luxurious Eden Cove 9 (aka EC9), managed by none other than the soon-to-be-discovered ironically named Better Beach Rentals. And, today, friends, we shall continue our voyage of discovery as I continue my extended review of the whole EC9, um, “experience”.

First, recall from last time how I shared our initial encounter with EC9: all those ----- stairs. Now, “vacation house has too many stairs” is really an unfair complaint for any beach house. But leave it up to Better Beach Rentals to take a minor inconvenience to–and pardon the pun–a whole new level. Level of Purgatory, that is…

Level Two: The Mystery Of The Moving Closets

“Honey, have you been able to get into any of these huge coat closets? The doors seem to be jammed.”

Since we had brought half our belongings with us to our Oak Island home, I was rather appreciative of the idea of having ample storage space on each of our three living levels, but it wouldn’t do us any good if we couldn’t get into them.

Even after pressing the button next to each door, nothing happened. They didn’t appear to magically unlock them as I had hoped. Nuts.

But after briefly trying and then getting on with settling in, something odd kept banging around in the back of my mind. Back when I was trying to decide whether to rent this place, I had read several reviews for this unit and for some of its Eden Cove brethren. In passing some previous patron had lamented that it was “a pity that the elevator was out of order.”

Holy shit, Batman.

How could I have been so dumb? The VRBO listing wasn’t kidding around about all the luxury that awaited us during our stay at Eden Cove. What is even more luxurious than huge coat closets? That’s right–we had our very own elevator up in the place!

I admit that it took me an embarrassingly long time to put the puzzle pieces together, but there was no doubt about it. That was definitely an elevator.

This realization came at the end of our first day there, and while we had moved most of our stuff in already, we still had several bulky items such as desks that still needed to be hauled up to the top floor. So an elevator was a sight for sore calves indeed!

Of course it couldn’t be that simple could it though? For the life of us we couldn’t get the dang thing to work. The only call button that even lit up when pressed was the one on the ground level, but then it would just flash at us and proceed to do exactly jack squat.

Now, for completely unrelated reasons, I shortly found myself on the phone with BBR’s after hours maintenance guy, and after he solved my problem, I happened to casually ask if the elevators were supposed to work. To my delight, he said that the owners had been making an effort to get them in working order, and that he would happily put in a work order to have it fixed!

Oh boy, Monday couldn’t come soon enough! That night I could barely sleep due to the anticipation of having access to private and convenient elevation. ‘Twas indeed a night filled with elevator repairman fantasies–of the PG kind, of course…

Have you ever sat around and waited for the mail all day? Or otherwise found yourself in a holding pattern while you waited for something important to happen?

So then you know what my Monday was like. Expecting the elevator guy to show up any minute, I put off any task that involved my focus for more than 10 minutes, including important things like going on a grocery run so my family wouldn’t starve. Or fun ones like enjoying with the girls this beautiful oasis that awaited us just out the back door:

It also didn’t help that we were harboring two pets that, if discovered, may or may not have gotten us kicked out onto the street with no refund. Thanks to the presence of Frank and Anne,¹Not their real names. the prospect of a stranger coming into our new home had us all on high alert, and I had to constantly be prepared to hide them and all related paraphernalia in the attic at the slightest hint of someone coming to visit.

Anyways, come 4 pm Monday afternoon, and still no there was no sign of the elevator guy, so I called up BBR and asked them what the dealio was, yo. They seemed to be very helpful, and said they would follow up and give me a call back. “What great customer service!” I thought.

Well, come Tuesday around noon–and another morning wasted waiting–and still no call back from BBR. So I had to call them up again to see what the heck was happening. They apologized and informed that the repairman was scheduled to come sometime in the morning the next day, and that, per my request, would call 15 minutes ahead of time.

At this point, I don’t think I have to tell you that I wasted another half day Wednesday waiting for this ----- guy to call. Finally, around 2:30, I called BBR out of exasperation, only to be told that, actually, he had already came and went.²The elevator on ground level is open to the outside, so it is perfectly plausible that one could work on it without ever setting foot inside. The diagnosis was that it needed a new control board, and–good news! The order had already been placed! Now, it just a matter of waiting for the part to come in.

More waiting. Of course, it was more waiting…

Fast forward to our last few days there, approximately 4 weeks later. After having the convenience of a working elevator to make moving all our stuff out a breeze, The Boss Lady and I couldn’t stop gushing the whole ride home about what an amazing, pampered, living-in-the-lap of luxury, 5-star, first-class service that Better Beach Rentals had really delivered!

…

Of course I’m J.K. Kidding.

No, not once did we get to ride in the elevator. Not a single ----- time!

Remember, I asked them to fix the elevator on our very first night there. They had 5 weeks to get the job done. What kind of shit-show ass-clown circus are they running over there anyways?

Though, by the end of our time there, we concluded that like hell we would ride in it had they got it working–no doubt we would have ended up either trapped for a week (best case scenario) or plummeting to the bottom in a manner that most people only have nightmares about.

“So why did it never get fixed?” you might as well go ahead and ask.

Well, I think maybe once in the interceding weeks did I try calling and following up on the “part” that was supposed to be coming in. But, about a week and half in I realized a cold hard truth: they had just been blowing smoke up my ass in hopes that I would either forget about it or get tired of waiting.

There was no part coming. Hell, there probably wasn’t even an elevator repairman. Wait…was there even an elevator in the elevator shaft?!?

I could feel the creeping suspicion that something was off about this place.

“This place is fancy af. This place is fancy af. This place is fancy af…“

That much was clear from the online listing, and I just had to keep repeating that to myself. Then it would have to be true, right?

Unless there more evidence emerged that suggested otherwise…

…

Yeah. That was indeed a foreshadowing of many installments of The Better Beach Rentals Review: The Extended Director’s Cut.

In other words, stay tuned…

Content created on: 17/18 June 2021 (Thurs/Fri)

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